Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN

WRITER: Rob Hedden

DIRECTOR: Rob Hedden

STARRING: Jensen Daggett as Rennie

Scott Reeves as Sean Robertson

Barbara Bingham as Colleen Van Deusen

Peter Mark Richman as Charles McCulloch

Martin Cummins as Wayne

Gordon Currie as Miles Wolfe

Alex Diakun as Deck Hand

V.C. Dupree as Julius

Saffron Henderson as J.J.

Kelly Hu as Eva Watanabe

Sharlene Martin as Tamara Mason

Warren Munson as Admiral Robertson

Kane Hodder as Jason

QUICK CUT: A group of high school seniors hit the town in New York City, and learn that there are some unexpected dangers in the big city!

THE MORGUE

Rennie - A student with a fear of water, and a dream to be a writer.

Sean - Another student who has little interest in following in the footsteps of his father, a ship’s captain.

Charles McCulloch - Rennie’s uncle, and science teacher. He took her in after her parents died, and raised her with as much love and affection as he could. Which is not much.

Jason - Same old Jason, but now in New York!

Sorry, the Muppets already beat you to it.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Bloody New Year, Triskelions! We somehow managed to survive that shitshow of a year, and fingers crossed we can start righting the ship in 2021. Speaking of ships, I see our old friend Jason Voorhees about to hop aboard a boat for his next movie, and our next in depth review, Jason Takes Manhattan!

We kick off with a few scenes in New York City, and get your fill now, because we otherwise have a long LONG time before we get back here. Spoiler.

A radio DJ does a monologue, and this is a HUGE missed opportunity. They could have done SOMEthing here, to make the radio broadcast into the 'campfire tale', as a bit of updating the language of the movie from the woods to the city, drawing those parallels.

But instead, it's back to Crystal Lake, where a couple is on a boat, and it's the guy who tells the tale of one Mister Voorhees.

Their anchor catches the underwater power lines, breaking it right near where we last left Jason, and he is brought back to life like Frankenstein's Monster.

In due course, he climbs up to the boat and takes care of the couple like any good Voorhees would. The boat, now sans passengers, drifts off and makes its way to the main docks, where the senior class that just graduated is waiting to board the Lazarus, and I don't think anyone's coming back from this trip. But the boat heads to New York City to party, and Jason decides to join in, despite not being invited, and stows away.

This is a solid opening at least, and presents a sensible enough way for Jason to take his journey. We also meet the canon fodder, including our primary girl, Rennie, a wannabe writer, and her love interest Sean, the son of the ship's captain.

We meet more of the canon fodder, and fortunately Jason murders one down in the generator room with her guitar before making us wait too long.

The movie kinda wanders around for a bit, checking in on all the characters, while Jason tries to pick from the potential victims. He is spoiled for choice in this movie, and there is nowhere they can go.

At some point, Rennie's dog runs off, and as she calls out for him, Jason peeks out of a room like, "Mommy? Did you call for me? Mommy??"

HEY BART CHECK OUT MY NEW GUITAR AND HOCKEY MASK!

We kinda go around like this for most of this second act; check in with characters, Jason picks one off, eventually they figure out he's killing people. It's a simple formula, and the characters are likable enough, with interesting enough kills spaced out just right, that it at least flows pretty well.

There is some student rivalry, and the movie also establishes Rennie's fear of water, as she's shoved overboard by the prom queen.

But after Tamara tries to blackmail seduce, videotape, and blackmail the science teacher, who also happens to be Rennie's uncle! She gets hers when Jason stabs her some.

I have the same reaction when I see myself in mirrors.

Jason, knowing he can't have competent people running the ship, makes his way up to the bridge to take care of the Admiral and his first mate, next.

Sean immediately finds his dead, calls everyone up for an emergency, and tries to radio for help. But Jason disables the radio.

Navy Ralph does his Crazy Ralph schtick, and is somehow sure that it's Jason, calling the kids 'the last ones' and I feel like we lost a bit of the plot there.

Eva discovers Tamara's body while trying to get her up to the bridge after Sean's message. She runs off after seeing Jason, gets stuck in the ships dance club, and gets choked out.

So yeah. Kelly Hu was in this movie for a hot second, huh?

The rest of the students arm up to go Jason hunting, and to make a long story short, they all pretty much end up dead before this ship ever comes anywhere near Manhattan.

All this killing, and smashing, and setting fires, has caused the ship's generators to more or less explode, and sirens start going off. Sean puts out the call to abandon ship, now that we've pared down the cast just enough to fit everyone in a single raft.

So they row off in the raft aimlessly, until the storm clears up enough and they see the Statue of Liberty to guide them in to the city

We are over an hour into this movie. 35 minutes are left. INCLUDING credits. Jason takes...his sweet fucking time getting to Manhattan. That's what this movie is.

You can survive this, make it home, make it better, right my wrongs, but you got to live through this first.

But FINALLY we are in Vacou...er, New York! And it takes them all of five seconds to get mugged.

The muggers also kidnap Rennie with them when they leave, and threaten to hurt her if they follow. And wow, if only their was a machete wielding lich who could kill people somewhere instead of these thugs.

Hilariously enough, Jason actually saves the day by showing up to kill the gangbangers. But not before they pop off a few shots, and Jason has this look of, "What? Guns? They have GUNS?? My campers never had *guns!!* Fuck this, I'm going back to Crystal Lake!"

Rennie runs off once her captors are dead, and as Jason chases her, he first finds the kid whom we've seen doing boxing stuff a lot so far. So of course we get a long drawn out boxing match, during which Jason just kinda takes it all in, giving Julius the ol' rope-a-dope, until Jason punches his head clean off.

Anyways, Rennie reunites with the others, and the cops show up and the officer sounds very Canadian indeed.

Before he can drive them off to safety, Jason drags him into an alleyway and murders him. Rennie drives the car off, has a hallucination of Baby Jason, and tries to run him over.

The cop car crashes, bursts into flames, and for some reason they decide to kill off Rennie's English teacher by having her just...not get out of the car.

Somehow, this triggers a flashback to the source of Rennie's fear of swimming, as we see her uncle shove her out of the boat like she's a bird in a nest. After telling her stories how Jason is in the lake, waiting to pull down anyone who can't swim. That...that is not how you teach someone to swim.

Oh, and she is somehow grabbed by baby Jason, which yeah, that would make me afraid of the water too.

Rennie runs off, leaving Uncle Mister Teacher to be chased by Jason, who defenestrates him, and then dunks him into a bucket of toxic waste...wait, are we supposed to assume those are just...sitting around?

Nooo, that's the last vat of Ecto Cooler! Don't waste it!

Look, at this point, we are down to just two characters running from Jason. The plot is petering out, they're needlessly trying to build in backstory and pathos NOW, and I just want them to wrap up the last 20 minutes.

Which they do, by dutifully heading down into the subway, because it's Vancou...New York.

But it at least leads to a welcome, if obvious, gag when they toss Jason onto the third rail. Sean actually has the nerve to say "It's over!" and those are famous last words.

We chase around New York a bit more. And since the movie is almost over and we've barely been in New York, they go for the cheapest of cheap and obvious gags, before we eventually end the chase down in the sewers.

They run into a worker down there who tries to get them out before the convenient flushing of toxic waste through the pipes. Dude quickly gets wrenched in the face for his troubles.

So the chase continues until that convenient flushing occurs, and Jason is essentially stopped by...a wave of shit.

Oh and uh, it somehow turned him back into a child? And looking normal? Dafuq?

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: Looks pretty good, no complaints

Audio: Same, good sound, good mix.

Sound Bite: “Welcome to New York…”

Body Count: Jason knows one thing, and that’s how to bring the bodies, so let’s break this down.

1- Jason spears Jim with a spear gun just before 10 minutes.

2 - Then he finds and stabs Suzie

3 - Nancy gets murdered with her guitar.

4 - Poor guy in the sauna gets hot rocked.

5 - Jason stabs Tamara with the mirror

6 - First mate gets gaffed in the back by Jason

7 - Captain gets macheted to the neck

8 - Jason chokes out the Asain girl

9 - One of the random students gets accidentally killed by Wayne.

10 - Wayne gets hurled into an electrical console.

11 - Kid gets hurled of the ladder to his death

12 - Navy Ralph got hatcheted in the back off camera

13 - Gangbanger gets needled

14 - Other gang member gets his face bashed in.

15 - Punches the boxing kid's head clean off.

16 - Jason strangles the cop with the CB

17 - Teacher doesn't get out of the car in time

18 - McCulloch is drowned in toxic waste.

19 - Random workman gets wrenched in the head

Best Corpse: I feel like it’s the obvious pick, but it’s gotta be Julius having his head punched off his shoulders

Blood Type - C: There is surprisingly little blood and gore in this movie. And the effects aren’t great. Julius’s head is the biggest effect, really.

Sex Appeal: A few attempts at boobs.

Drink Up! every time you see Rennie’s Statue of Liberty pendant.

Movie Review: I know this movie gets a lot of crap, but it’s not that bad. The plot is straightforward enough, and it only has to bend over backwards a tiny bit just to get Jason where he needs to be for the plot, and it’s good to go. The thing everyone harps on, and I poked fun at it, is the false advertising of the title. Yes, there’s Manhattan, but it takes so long to get there. “Jason takes a ship” is an accurate mocking title. But trapping everyone on a boat, picking them off, it works, and it works well. The kills are creative, and it’s mostly fun. Three out of five boom boxes.

Entertainment Value: There’s not a lot of silliness here, outside of some bits with Jason’s face, some fun with a crazy Ralph knock off, and the NYC stuff is goofy enough. But nothing so terrible that it’s entertaining in its own right. Three out of five barrels of toxic waste.